Coverings for architectural openings such as windows, doors, archways and the like have assumed numerous forms for many years. Early forms of such coverings consisted primarily of fabric draped across the architectural opening, and in many instances the fabric was not movable between extended and retracted positions relative to the opening.
Retractable coverings for architectural openings, herein referred to as shades, have evolved into many different forms, which include roller shades in which a piece of flexible material can be extended from a wrapped condition on a roller to an extended position across the architectural opening, and vice versa. Other popular forms of retractable coverings for an architectural opening include Venetian blinds, vertical blinds, cellular shades and various variations on these basic designs. Cellular shades, as opposed to roller shades, generally collapse and stack up when retracted, and expand or extend when in the extended position.
Typically, shades of virtually any type may be manually retracted and extended by the user. More recently systems have been developed to allow a user to also alter the amount of light passing through a shade that is in an extended position. Typically, these types of shades have vanes that are movably positioned on the body of the shade, with the vanes controlled by the user. However, these movable vanes are difficult to assemble because of the flexibility and need to be movable between different positions.
It is to satisfy the above-recognized issues that the present invention has been developed.